Judge sets early 2025 trial for ex-prosecutor charged with meddling in Ahmaud Arbery investigation

[November 06, 2024]  By RUSS BYNUM

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — A judge Tuesday set an early 2025 trial date for a former Georgia district attorney charged with interfering with the police investigation into the killing of Ahmaud Arbery,

Jury selection in the criminal misconduct trial of Jackie Johnson is scheduled to begin Jan. 21 in coastal Glynn County, according to an order by Senior Judge John R. Turner. He set a Dec. 11 hearing for attorneys to argue their final pretrial motions.

Johnson was the county's top prosecutor in February 2020 when Arbery was fatally shot on a residential street as he ran from three white men chasing him in pickup trucks. While Arbery's pursuers argued they mistakenly believed the 25-year-old Black man was a criminal and that he was shot in self-defense, all three were later convicted of murder and federal hate crimes.

Johnson recused her office from handling the killing because the man who initiated the deadly chase, Greg McMichael, was a retired investigator who had worked for her. His son, Travis McMichael, had shot Arbery at close range with a shotgun. A neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, joined the pursuit and recorded graphic cellphone video of the shooting that leaked online more than two months later.

Johnson was voted out of office months later, a loss she blamed largely in outrage over Arbery's killing. In September 2021, a grand jury indicted her indicted her on a felony count of violating her oath of office and a misdemeanor count of hindering a police officer.

The case has moved a crawl since Johnson was first charged, reported to jail for booking and then released. She has yet to appear in court. The judge's scheduling order Tuesday was the first action taken since last November, when Turner denied legal motions by Johnson’s lawyers to dismiss the case.

Brunswick Judicial Circuit District Attorney Jackie Johnson presents her closing arguments during the trial of De'Marquise Elkins and Karimah Elkins at Cobb Superior Court in Marietta, Ga., Aug. 2013. (AP Photo/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Phil Skinner, File)

The judge told The Associated Press in September that the delays were unavoidable because one of Johnson's attorneys, Brian Steel, had spent most of the past two years in an Atlanta courtroom defending Grammy-winning rapper Young Thug in a sprawling racketeering and gang trial.

Turner's order moving ahead with Johnson's case came less than a week after Young Thug pleaded guilty to gang, drug and gun charges.

Steel and attorney John Ossick, who also represents Johnson, did not immediately respond to an email message seeking comment Tuesday evening.

Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr said in a statement that "we look forward to presenting our case in court.”

While the men responsible for Arbery’s death are serving life prison sentences, his family has insisted that justice won’t be complete for them until Johnson stands trial.

“It’s very, very important,” Wanda Cooper-Jones, Arbery’s mother, told the AP in September. She did not immediately return a phone message Tuesday.

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